External Jar is not visible from classes under a package

Question

I have an external.jar in my maven project running with IntelliJ. My class1 cannot resolve my external.jar until I remove it out from package1 . Could you please suggest me a best practice in order to solve such a problem by keeping the folder structure as below.

mvn -v : Apache Maven 3.6.0, Java version: 1.8.0_212

Folder Structure:
-src
--test

---java
----package1
-----class1
----package2

---resources
----external.jar

-target
-External Libraries

Answer 1

You keep all your external jars under lib folder. Refer below link

http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-dependency-mechanism.html#System_Dependencies

Answer 2

Steps for adding external jars in IntelliJ IDEA as follows.

1. Click File from the toolbar
2. Project Structure ( CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + S on Windows/Linux, ⌘ + ; on Mac OS X)
3. Select Modules on the left panel
4. Dependencies tab
5. + → JARs or directories
6. Select a library you want to add and click Add Selected at the bottom of the dialog

Please refer this official document from IntelliJ.